Ah that time of year is upon us – developer conferences. Not only we just saw the announcement of Microsoft‘s new Surface Laptop, two upcoming developer conferences are set to run in the next week or so – Google I/O and Apple’s WDCC. The latter is said to come with goodies to the iOS fans, as Apple is said to be announcing their newest family member in the iPad family. According to flying rumours, there will be the announcement of a new 10.5 inch iPad, as well as a Siri speaker ala Amazon Echo.

KGI’s Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says there is a more than 50% chance of the Siri Speaker, an all-new category for the company. In line with Apple’s push towards a connected house, the Siri Speaker (tentative name) will involve some sort of connectivity with the home via Apple’s HomeKit, as well as a new AI, that is set to be announced at the same time as the speaker.

For the tablet market, Apple is said to be readying the new iPad with a new screen size – 10.5 inch. This will replace the current iPad Air II in the line up. What makes this tablet a bit different is that it will have an edge-to-edge screen, and because of this, the footprint of the tablet is said to be somewhere around the iPad Mini. If this is the case, we may see a flurry of large-screened mini tablets in the near future.